White House Sends Confusing Messages on Syria Barrel Bombs

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s tendency to improvise when asked questions about US policy has sparked a new round of speculation about exactly where the Trump Administration stands of launching further attacks against Syria, after he declared barrel bombs to be a red line.

Launching attacks over “gas attacks,” even accused ones without an investigation, appears to be roughly in line with past stated policy. Barrel bombs, however, are conventional munitions, and threatening to attack Syria over conventional attacks during a civil war would be something else entirely.

Unsurprisingly, the White House appeared to back away from Spicer’s declaration a few hours later, issuing a statement insisting US policy toward Syria has not changed at all, and that Trump retains the option of attacking Syria whenever he feels like it is “in the national interest.” This statement mentioned chemical weapons but did not mention barrel bombs, saying Trump doesn’t want to “telegraph” what justifications he would use for future attacks.

The real sticking point on understanding US policy in Syria, however, is less about the conflict statements from the officials who have talked about it, but the fact that President Trump has conspicuously been totally silent on what his policy is, raising doubts over whether even he knows what he’s going to do next.

“many red lines, but that Trump didn’t want to make them all public knowledge”.

The purpose of the color being that you actually let someone know that the line is there. The word Spicer was looking for might have been “trip wires” and “mining the whole bloody region”. But that must not have sound quite right to him.

I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare…. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes.

Do we even have proof that Assad is even using barrel bombs? I’m not saying he isn’t. It certainly seems up his alley. But I’ve never actually seen anything solid to verify that accusation. We already know he’s all out of gas. The U.N. and even the Obama administration verified this. But every time someone says barrel bombs I say prove it and no one ever does.